


today and tomorrow

by kaleidoscopestars



Category: PRISTIN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Coffee Shops, F/F, Kinda?, Mutual Pining, someone save yebin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-18 21:20:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11883045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaleidoscopestars/pseuds/kaleidoscopestars
Summary: jiequiong and eunwoo are useless, and yebin is suffering





	today and tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> this is the first pristin fic i've written so sorry in advance if some of the characterisations are a bit off!!

Eunwoo has a plan.

  
It’s flawless in every way. She’s spent hours scrutinising it and turning it upside down to analyse it from every possible angle and perspective; searching for any crack in her thinking that might turn the whole thing into an unfortunate mess. Sitting at their usual booth at the rather run down starbucks a few blocks away from their high school, she tells (or rather yells) every part of her plan to (at) Yebin.

  
Yebin just sucks the green straw of her caramel frappuccino and watches in awe. Not because the plan is particularly clever or ingenious, but because it seems impossible that someone can move their arms in that way and talk non-stop for so long without running out of breath.

“So,” Eunwoo’s eyes are alight and she's almost on the edge of her seat “What do you think?”  


Yebin puts down the remains of her drink and squints at Eunwoo slightly. Honestly, she'd stopped paying attention after the first five minutes of Eunwoo’s tidal wave of words (something about orchestras and how pretty Jiequiong’s eyes were when she smiled?), but she'd never admit that.

  
“Isn’t it a bit much?” Yebin crumples an empty sugar packet between her fingers “Wouldn't it just be easier to just tell Jiequiong how you feel instead of hiring a marching band or whatever the fuck you were saying?”

  
Eunwoo's face crumples like the sugar packet “I said brass band and I’ve told you before, I can't just confess to her, it's too embarrassing. What if she turns me down and then hates me forever,” her eyes widen in horror “What if she gives me back the friendship bracelet I made her, what if she's straight, what if-”

Kyungwon slides into the booth clutching a venti americano like a lifeline and effectively ending Eunwoo's increasingly more morbid stream of ‘what-ifs. ’‘what's the matter with her?” She asks Yebin, nodding her head at Eunwoo who's now slumped face down on the table.  


“Jiequiong.” Yebin replies, poking at Eunwoo’s head with one of those plastic sticks meant for stirring coffee that aren't actually useful for that, or just about anything else other than torturing your friends or using as small projectile weapons.

Kyungwon nods knowingly “Ah, young love.” she downs a considerable amount of her americano and grimaces, although whether it's at the heat or the taste Yebin isn't sure.

  
“Shut up.” Eunwoo mumbles into the grimy table “You're less than a year older than me.”

  
Kyungwon grins evilly “And yet I’m so much more mature.”

  
“The other day you were crying because you saw a kitten”

  
“It was a very small kitten.’ Kyungwon says with a sense of finality as if that proves her original point and she's obviously the mature one. Yebin thinks it's like watching a couple of five-year-olds bickering. “Anyway, I was thinking,” She announces through gulps of coffee, her caffeine-fuelled brain jumping to a new topic faster than Eunwoo sprints out of last period maths on a Friday.  


Eunwoo snorts “Isn't that a bit dangerous for you?”  


Rolling her eyes, Kyungwon continues “Technically smoking weed is legal in Chernobyl because no one’s gonna go in there to stop you.”

Yebin raises her eyebrows and puts down the now completely destroyed sugar packet to give Kyungwon's bullshit her full attention.   
“Is this the sort of thing you think about whenever you have free time?”

  
“Nah,” Kyungwon replies “Whenever I have free time I normally stare at a wall until I pass out or spend it in coffee shops talking to children.”

  
Yebin considers stabbing her in the eye with the plastic coffee stirrer.

  
“I thought of this particular gem in the middle of my English lecture.”  
Confused, Yebin frowns slightly “I thought you wanted to be a biochem major?”

  
“I do, but this English course is compulsory and I have to force myself through it at some point in my college life, even though it has no relevance to anything and that's why I was paying exactly no attention to whatever ‘shall I compare thee to a summers day’ fake deep Shakespeare analysis nonsense the professor was spouting.”

  
“Do you even study Shakespeare in college?” She's pretty certain she remembers Nayoung complaining bitterly about some 19th-century novel and several dull poems when she suffered through the college English course, but no Shakespeare.  


Kyungwon shrugs “Wouldn't know, I never paid attention.”

“Is weed the only thing legal in Chernobyl?” Eunwoo’s voice floats up from where her face is still firmly squished onto the table. Kyungwon slams her mug down, her face lit up with what Minkyung calls ‘Kyungwon’s scheming expression’ and Siyeon calls ‘a sign of impending doom for all of us’

  
“Anything’s legal there.”

  
Suddenly Eunwoo sits bolt upright “I’ve got it!” Yebin braces herself for whatever weird shit is about to spill out of her friend’s mouth.  
“I’ll take Jiequiong to Chernobyl and confess to her there, that way if she turns me down and I die from embarrassment then she won't be charged for manslaughter.”

  
Yebin doesn't quite have the heart to tell her that they'd probably both die from radiation poisoning.

~

The next day is Saturday, and Yebin had secretly harboured the blind hope that the lack of school would save her from Eunwoo’s annoying mix of pining and moping. Instead, Yebin finds herself at her weekend job, stacking shelves at the local supermarket, with Eunwoo following after her, turning all the cans around so that their labels couldn't be seen.

  
“I don't know what to do.” Eunwoo draws the last word out into a high pitched whine and pokes one of the cans particularly hard, sending it rolling to the back of the shelf. Yebin pretends to not notice the damage her friend is causing and continues to shelve the tinned tomatoes.

  
It’s not like Jiequiong is a random classmate or a passing acquaintance, someone Eunwoo talked to once and then fell head over heels for. She’s Eunwoo and Yebin’s best friend, the three of them have been joined at the hip for as long as Yebin can care to remember. Ever since Jiequiong’s family had moved to their town from China and Jiequiong had joined Yebin and Eunwoo’s first grade class with her hello kitty backpack, a smile brighter than the sun, and enough enthusiasm to almost put Eunwoo to shame- key word: almost.

 

So it wasn't as if Jiequiong could be an axe murderer who'd turn around and decapitate Eunwoo for saying that she had a crush on her. (Probably).

“You know,” Yebin keeps her eyes focused on the tinned spaghetti that she's now lining up in orderly rows on the shelf for Eunwoo (and the other customers that love to test Yebin’s patience) to turn into a mess. “Worst case scenario, you ask her out and she says no, everything's a bit awkward for a while and then something else more embarrassing or interesting happens, you both forget all about it, and then you both move on with your lives.”

  
There's a sudden crashing noise behind Yebin. Eunwoo is still in the same place staring blankly at the display canned tomatoes, only now half the tins are rolling slowly across the floor.

 “Worst case scenario…” She echoes. Yebin can see a thousand increasingly bad possibilities reflected in Eunwoo’s eyes as her overactive imagination tries to come up with the absolute worst possible outcome.

  
She glances at her watch; thank god her shift is over.

~

Every Monday after school Eunwoo, Jiequiong, and Yebin all meet up outside the starbucks where Sungyeon works the afternoon shift, serving people death glares alongside whatever ridiculously fancy coffee they dared to order. They spend a while keeping her company (or harassing her and making her job impossible, depending on which side of the story you listen to). They then make their way to Yebin’s house to ‘do homework’ and instead end up ordering takeout and watching some low budget horror movie. That's how it's been every single Monday since they started high school, it’s part of a routine they all know and follow to the letter almost without thinking.  


But, this Monday, Eunwoo takes one look at Jiequiong, who's standing next to Yebin telling her a story about someone in her music class and how they managed to break three guitar strings in under an hour, and mumbles some excuse about how her mum, no her dog, is ill and she has to get home right now, before running off in the opposite direction.

  
Jiequiong scrunches up her nose in thought “Doesn't Eunwoo have a cat?”  
Yebin shrugs “Maybe it's a new dog?” Jiequiong shrugs in return and links her arm with Yebin’s, seemingly accepting the vague explanation.

For the rest of the afternoon, Jiequiong’s normal storm of energy and mad ideas seems muted and grey.

~

from:yebin  
to:eunwoo  
what the hell was that all about?

from:eunwoo  
to:yebin  
idk :(( i saw jq nd panicked

from:yebin  
to:eunwoo  
and a sick dog was the best excuse you could come up with even though you don't have a dog??????  
(read: 7:13pm)

~

from:jiequiong  
to:yebin  
is eunwoo okay? she's not answering any of my calls or messages :((

from:yebin  
to:jiequiong  
maybe her phone died???

from:jiequiong  
to:yebin  
do you think she hates me :’(((

from:yebin  
to:jiequiong  
wtf? no of course not where did u get that from

from:jiequiong  
to:yebin  
she's been really weird around me lately :( i thought maybe she found out that i hd a crush on her + that freaked her out or smthn??

from:yebin  
to:jiequiong  
wait what  
from:yebin  
to:jiequiong  
hwo didnt i know abt that???  
from:yebin  
to:jiequiong  
who DID know???

from:jiequiong  
to:yebin  
minkyung and nayoung?? and i think minkyung told kyungwon but no one else

from:yebin  
to:jiequiong  
i'm going to ducking kill kyungwon

from:jiequiong  
to:yebin  
?????????????????????  
(read: 8:30 pm)

~

Yebin is stuck in the middle.

  
Minkyung calls it ‘a dilemma', Siyeon calls it ‘dumb as hell’, Yewon thinks it's a love story straight out of a made for tv coming of age teenage movie. Yebin calls it what it is: Fucking annoying.

Her two best friends are in love with each other and between them, they have about three brain cells and the emotional range of a teaspoon, or perhaps a worm.

  
Not that Yebin can really say much. She sucks when it comes to her own feelings and instead of acknowledging them, she prefers to internalise them, ignore them, and then spend her life getting annoyed at her friends being fucking idiots about their emotions and somehow managing to get caught in the proverbial crossfire that ensues when two of them are idiots about each other.  


No, crossfire is the wrong word. Crossfire implies that something's actually happening.  
This is more of a cold war.

~

It’s very likely that if Eunwoo put the same amount of energy into her essays that she did into describing how cute Jiequiong’s nose was, or how pretty her hair was, then she wouldn't be in danger of flunking English. Yebin tells her this and gets an empty cola can thrown at her head for her troubles.

Jiequiong’s pining is less obnoxious but equally annoying. Unlike Eunwoo, she doesn't go on and on for hours waxing poetry about the other’s eyes looking like ‘melted chocolate’ or ‘sparkling like stars’ or whatever the fuck. Instead, she finds a way to bring Eunwoo up in every conversation she has. Yebin still hasn't managed to work out how she manages to do it or how to stop her.

“What do you think of the chemistry homework?” Yebin asks. The Starbucks is closed on Sunday afternoons so instead, they're sitting in mcdonald's talking and throwing unnaturally yellow fries at each other instead of eating them.

  
“I’ve never been any good with science. Normally I get Eunwoo to do it for me and pay her with food; I would feel bad about it but she looks so cute when she's concentrating and-” Yebin zones out and tries to fit as many fries as possible into her mouth.

It’s possible the pining would be tolerable if Jiequiong and Eunwoo were actually talking, but instead, they continue to avoid each other. The excuses they use get weirder every time, each one of them making Eunwoo’s non-existent sick dog look reasonable. Sadly for Yebin, this means that the pining comes hand in hand with constant complaining about how ‘Jiequiong must hate me or why would she be avoiding me?’ and vice versa.

“If I have to deal with either of them for another five minutes I swear to god I’ll lie down on the train tracks and wait for the sweet, unavoidable kiss of death.” Kyla hums vaguely in agreement and continues to stare at the half written essay in front of her.

  
The starbucks is empty apart from them, Sungyeon taking a nap at the counter with her head propped up against the glass case covering the display of overpriced muffins and sandwiches, and Kyungwon sitting in one of the window seats doing what she claimed was ‘important college work’ but looked more like just playing tetris on her phone.  


“I mean it” Yebin means to sound certain and full of conviction but it comes out as more of a pained whine “It's been months and months already.”

  
“Yebin, it's been two weeks.”

  
“Yeah and that two weeks of Jiequiong and Eunwoo avoiding each other and then complaining to me has managed to take thirty years off my lifespan.”

  
Kyla finally looks up from her work. “If it's bothering you so much, you should stage an intervention or something.”  


“An intervention?”

  
“Yeah, sit them both down in the booth and tell them that they're being annoying, their feelings are reciprocated, and then they can both move on and leave you alone.”

  
“Where did you learn such long words?”

An intervention does sound like a good idea. It’s simple like all the best plans are (not that she'd ever crush Eunwoo’s soul by telling her that), but it almost seems too easy.  
In fact, it seems too easy because Yebin’s already sort of tried it (with Eunwoo at least) but if her friends are anything, they're stubborn as fuck. There’s no way Yebin can persuade them to do anything they don't want to do.

Unless…

Kyla catches the look on Yebin’s face and silently prays that whatever she's planning doesn't cause too much collateral damage.

~

It’s simple. All she has to do is force Eunwoo and Jiequiong to talk to each other.

The most challenging part is getting them in the same place at the same time. Teenagers are extremely capable of avoiding things they don't want to do- a fact proven by high school careers full of procrastination and deadlines met at the very last possible moment.  
Not wanting to run into each other is at the very top of Jiequiong and Eunwoo’s lists of things to avoid at all costs. So Yebin can't just ask them to come to the starbucks. They’ll probably guess she's up to something, they know her too well not to be suspicious and anyway, Eunwoo still isn't replying to texts or phone calls and Jiequiong has been avoiding the starbucks like it's infested with some sort of flesh eating virus.

  
But, after being friends with them for over half her life, Yebin knows their weaknesses.

from:yebin  
to:eunwoo  
hey  
(seen: 4:15pm)  
from:yebin  
to:eunwoo  
hey  
(seen: 4:18pm)  
from:yebin  
to:eunwoo  
hey asshole i kno ur reading this  
(seen: 4:20 pm)  
from:yebin  
to:eunwoo  
you still have read receipts turned on, genius. anyway get ur ass to starbucks by 4:30 or i'm telling siyeon who it actually was that broke her headphones

“Are you sure this is a good idea.” Nayoung looks slightly pained as she hands Yebin her phone, probably because she'll have to deal with the inevitable nuclear-fallout-level disaster that Yebin causes.

  
“No, but it's the only idea I have so that automatically makes it the best one.” Yebin replies as she types out a message on Nayoung’s phone and hits send

from:nayoung  
to:jiequiong  
please can you come to the starbucks now? i want to talk to you about something. don't worry it's not anything serious  
from:jiequiong  
to:nayoung  
okay :D!!!

“So what're you going to do when they get here?” Siyeon asks, her chin resting on Yebin’s shoulder as she reads the messages. “Eunwoo will take one look at Jiequiong and leave.”

  
“I’m going to lock them in the supply closet until they talk.”

~

“You’re going to what?” Sungyeon gives Yebin a scathing look.

  
“Please just give me the key, it's for the greater good.” Admittedly the plan could do with some work or being completely abandoned for something better and marginally less dangerous, but Yebin is tired and fed up.

  
“I’m not doing anything that might get me fired, and that includes locking two of my friends in a closet.”

  
“It’ll only get you fired if the manager finds out.” Sungyeon goes visibly paler at the mention of her manager and Yebin wishes she could remember to think before opening her mouth.  


Yewon gives up on trying to listen in from the booth and walks up to the counter and sits in the seat next to Yebin. “Come on Sungyeon, it's not the worst idea she's had, and it can't hurt that much.” She gives Sungyeon her brightest smile and Yebin thanks every god in existence. Yewon was at least partially right as well, Yebin’s former ideas had come dangerously close to breaking several major laws and it was a probably a good thing that Kyla had persuaded her to drop them.

Everyone has weaknesses. Eunwoo’s is her long history of embarrassing fuck ups, Jiequiong’s is that she'll do anything Nayoung says, and Sungyeon’s is Yewon’s smile.

With a sigh Sungyeon hands over the key to the closet. “If anything happens you're paying for the breakages.” Yebin just nods and runs before she can change her mind.

The next part is infinitely simpler.

Jiequiong opens the door with way too much force like she always does, sending it slamming into the wall and causing Sungyeon to wince. She makes her way across the booth and slides onto the bench opposite Nayoung and next to Siyeon. Kyla and Yebin are also sitting in the booth but Kyungwon and Minkyung are over the other side of the room at one of the window seats, choosing to ‘watch the shit hit the fan from a safe distance’.

“What did you want to talk t-”  


Siyeon’s hand shoots out and ‘accidentally’ knocks her drink over, cutting Jiequiong off mid-sentence as the flood slowly advances towards her.

  
“Oh,” Nayoung sounds so unsurprised that Yebin has to fight the urge to laugh “Jiequiong could you get a towel or something from the closet?”

This isn't anything out of the ordinary, the group is in the starbucks so much that about a year ago Sungyeon had given up on mopping up the hundreds of inevitable spills caused by arguments, disagreements, and Kyungwon’s general clumsiness, and instead had told them to ‘Get the fucking bucket and mop from the closet yourself or find some other chain coffee shop to terrorise.’

Jiequiong nods and practically leaps out of her seat to avoid the advancing tide of coffee. As soon as the closet door clicks shut, Kyla hi-fives Siyeon. They’re half way through congratulating each other on their great acting when Eunwoo crashes through the door in a similar way to Jiequiong, with her sweater on backwards and her hair in a tangled mess.  


Sungyeon vows to herself that she'll throw the empty tip jar at the next person that makes any noise walking through that door.

Siyeon raises her eyebrows “what did you say to get her here so fast?” Yebin suddenly finds the corner of the table extremely interesting  


“Eunwoo!” Nayoung half yells. Eunwoo starts like a deer in the headlights. “Can you get a cloth from the closet? Siyeon spilled her drink again.” Eunwoo nods and dashes off, purposefully avoiding eye contact

 

Yebin jumps out of her seat to follow Eunwoo and as soon as she’s through the door, Yebin slams it shut and twists the key in the lock before almost collapsing to the floor with her back against the door. It couldn't have been any more than a couple of minutes since Jiequiong had walked through the door but it felt like it'd been an eternity. She can hear someone shaking the door handle from the inside, and then Eunwoo’s slightly (very) panicked voice.

  
“Yebin, you better let us out right the fuck now. “

  
“How did you know it was me?”

  
“Who the hell else?” Jiequiong yells and Yebin has to admit she has a point.

  
“I’m not letting you out until you talk, and that's final.”

  
Someone on the other side of the door swears loudly and then after a couple of minutes of silence, the hum of conversation starts. Yebin smiles to herself as she gets up off the ground and heads back to the booth. Her job here is done.

(She considers not letting them out of the cupboard at all but Sungyeon’s murderous expression when she brings the idea up makes her reconsider.)

~

If Jiequiong and Eunwoo were characters in a book, Yebin thinks, there'd be no way for words to properly capture them. They’re too 3d, too full of life and colour for words to accurately pick out. Similes and metaphors would fall flat. Adjectives would be too bland, too simple, no matter how many syllables they have. They’re so full of hopes and impossible dreams that it'd take a whole novel to begin to come close to document a single second of their existence.

They’re also a disgustingly sweet couple and no one is even remotely surprised.

It took Siyeon the grand total of two days to ban them from calling each other any pet names when they're in her presence.  


“Every time you forget, you owe me a dollar,” she says, waving a pencil in a threatening manner, the half-written music sheet on the table long forgotten. It seems like a fair deal for everyone involved (everyone meaning Siyeon, at the end of the week she's twenty dollars richer.)

 It doesn't stop them from finding other ways of being ‘gross’ as Sungyeon so artfully put it. A lot of the time they just sit there and stare into each other's eyes, smiling slightly. Completely unaware of everything else around them.  


Kyla mimes throwing up and Siyeon cackles.

~

Eunwoo is also banned from making plans. Yebin says ‘it's for the sake of her sanity.’; Kyla says it's ‘because Eunwoo has no concept of what's realistically possible.’; Nayoung says it's because ‘she’s not paying for the cost of any more smashed windows’. But that doesn't stop her from trying.

Her latest plan gives Yebin a strange sense of déjà vu.

  
“You do realise you could just get Jiequiong a box of chocolates or something, instead of hiring an orchestra to serenade her or a plane to fly across the sky with a banner saying how much you love her. It’s your three month anniversary, it's not that deep.”

  
Eunwoo pouts comically, her face a cartoon caricature of sadness. “I want to do something big though. Something memorable not boring and cliché”

  
“Jiequiong’s into all that cliché, classical romantic bullshit anyway and she's into you. She’ll love whatever you do.” Eunwoo nods and goes back to her drink, plan hopefully forgotten.

  
The starbucks is quiet as it always is in the afternoons but Yebin still almost manages to miss the door swinging open as Jiequiong walks in. It's funny how quiet she can be after Sungyeon threatened to permanently kick out the next person who ‘attempts to break the door down instead of just opening it normally’.

Jiequiong kisses Eunwoo in lieu of any proper greeting and Yebin rolls her eyes, more for appearance's sake than anything else. They finally break apart after what seems like years and Jiequiong giggles for no apparent reason, her smile scrunching up her face.  


“Young love.” Kyungwon sighs wistfully from the other corner of the booth “I miss when I was that innocent.” Minkyung snorts and hits her on the head with a spoon.

  
“You were never innocent.”

With another giggle, Jiequiong scoops Eunwoo’s bag off the floor and then stands staring at them expectantly, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet. ”You guys ready to go?”

  
Eunwoo nods and Jiequiong grabs her hand and pulls her up and towards the door, Yebin follows slightly behind them until Jiequiong loops their arms together dragging Yebin forwards slightly until she falls in step.

It used to be Jiequiong and Eunwoo and Yebin. Now it’s JiequiongandEunwoo, and Yebin tagged on at the end.

But Yebin doesn't mind.

**Author's Note:**

> please leave comments/feedback!! :D


End file.
